BID Executive Director Richard H. Bradley chats with Martin Kelly, vice chair of Capita, a Victoria BID Board Member.
The DowntownDC BID welcomed a delegation from the Victoria BID in London, England, for a three-day visit last month. The BIDs recently became the first to forge a twinning agreement across national borders, thus broadening mutual understanding and sharing best practices. Of particular interest: ways to enhance knowledge about homelessness, business development, security, the environment, and public space management.
DowntownDC BID Executive Director Richard H. Bradley visited the Victoria BID last fall and hosted the British delegation here. The visitors included Ruth Duston, chief executive officer of the Victoria BID; board members Nigel Hughes, vice chair of Grosvenor, an international property development, investment and fund management group, and Martin Kelly, vice chair of Capita, the United Kingdom’s leading business process outsourcing and professional services company; and Scott Nixon, the Victoria BID manager.
During their stay, the group toured the Downtown, met with DowntownDC BID department heads, visited executives with the Capitol Riverfront, Golden Triangle and Rosslyn BIDs to sample a range of BIDs and learn how they function and are managed, and met with the Arlington County Board in Virginia.
“We’ve done a lot in a short period of time and will sit down and assimilate all the information that we gathered,” said Kelly. “I hope that some of the information that we left behind will benefit the BIDs as well because this partnership is a two-way street.”
Indeed. The Victoria BID is only two years old. Its business mix and geographical make up is comparable to that of the DowntownDC BID, which turns 15 this year. Both have large numbers of government offices and buildings and attract tourists galore. They differ in that the DowntownDC BID has direct relationships with property owners, versus tenants, is larger in scale, and has a very active street presence with the SAM Program.
“The open dialogue and interchange of ideas were beneficial all around because we share similar issues, such as homelessness, addressing sustainability concerns and planning for huge development projects—CityCenterDC here and the Victoria Transport Interchange there,” said Bradley.
Ultimately, according to Duston, the Victoria BID would like to establish a staff exchange program with the DowntownDC BID and actively participate in next year’s National Cherry Blossom Festival, planned for March 20 to April 14, 2013. This year, in a show of solidarity, the Victoria BID planted cherry trees back home to link to the 100th anniversary of the gift of trees from Japan to DC. The Festival, which receives staff support and shares office space with the BID, ran for an unprecedented five weeks, concluding on April 27.
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